Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.
Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.
Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!
Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.
Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/
It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.
Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.
Borderland is the best description I could come up with for this trek along the A4 from the border with Somerset (BANES) on St Nicholas Day, 6th December 2022. The title picture, taken just across the border on the Shockerwick 'chicane', shows beech, hazel and clematis vitalba colour in the hedgerow.
A landscape version of the title picture taken at the Shockerwick 'chicane'
Shifting the view upwards into the canopy
Traffic heading into the Shockerwick 'chicane' and then onwards into Bath
Heading into the parish and village of Box, we find the first of many items of litter strewn along the highway
The view from t'other side of the road
Thankfully, some mature trees remain in spite of the significant felling exercise undertaken by Network Rail in the last few years
Approaching the lane that leads to Upper and Lower Shockerwick
I fail to understand this as a marketing exercise. The black population of South West England is, according to Government statistics, 2.7%. Bupa must have chosen these 'actors' because of their colour which is outright racism is it not?
Winter sun striking the oaks at the entrance to Shockerwick Lane
Shockerwick Lane with a By Brook water meadow at left (and right)
An old oak frames the view across Shockerwick to Bannerdown
Another old oak in a field bordering the By Brook
Winter colour in Shockerwick hedgerows and fields; Bannerdown beyond
Winter colour along the By Brook
The grade 1 listed Shockerwick House by John Wood, the Elder reflects the winter sun from its Bath Stone (presumably) facade
The byway twixt Shockerwick and Ashley (via the railway footbridge)
A short diversion through Ashley; a spreading oak dominates the scene
A short diversion through Ashley; this extensive, first-floor balcony must provide a great space for sundowners
A bend in Ashley Road
On Ashley Road
Looking west on Ashley Road
The A4 twixt Shockerwick and Box
From their structure, these trackside trees should be poplars but they have more the colour of beech at this time of year
The Northey Arms
Dr Mohr's house on the Box - Colerne lane; Bannerdown beyond
Saltbox Farm at the foot of the 'back road' to Colerne. Many years ago, I was sitting next to an American family on a cross-channel hovercraft and asked where they had been staying in England. Their response; "Saltbox Farm near the village of Box".
View across the By Brook Valley towards Bannerdown from Box Hill
View across the By Brook Valley towards Bannerdown from Box Hill
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